Finally, Jesus warns that salt can lose its saltiness. In social justice terms, this is a caution against accommodation and complacency. When faith communities absorb the values of domination or individualism, they lose their distinctiveness and moral force. To remain “salty” is to stay grounded in solidarity with the marginalized and committed to transformation, even when such commitment is costly. “You are the salt of the earth” calls for an engaged, courageous presence: even only in small doses, salt is still capable of preserving life and bringing out its best flavors.
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This is Part 2 of the series Torah, Prophets and Societal Justice
(Read this series from its beginning here.)
Next let’s consider Jesus’ image of a “city on a hill.” This imagery has often been lifted out of its context and repurposed to describe nations, power, or exceptionalism. Writers from the United States, notably, have used this image to describe their country. Yet in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is not addressing empires or nations. He is instead speaking to a marginalized community of disciples living under Roman occupation, and calling them into a distinctive way of life shaped by God’s justice. Jesus’ metaphor is ethical, not nationalistic.
A city on a hill is visible not because it dominates, but because it cannot hide. In the same breath, Jesus speaks of light, good works, and glorifying God. The “light” he envisions in this chapter is the concrete practice of compassion and justice, peacemaking, and solidarity with the poor that he has just described in the Beatitudes. This city shines when people who hunger and thirst for justice forgive debts, refuse violence, and love their neighbors and their enemies. Its visibility comes from lived faithfulness, not military might, economic supremacy, or cultural dominance.
So to read the “city on a hill” as a nation-state is to invert Jesus’ meaning. Empires seek to be seen through power; Jesus instead calls his followers to be seen through compassion and a justice that results in peace. The city he imagines is not built by coercion or exclusion but by communities that embody God’s reign, the Kingdom. That kingdom is God’s just future where the vulnerable are protected, resources are shared, and humanity is restored. This kind of visibility often brings risk, not praise, because it exposes injustice and challenges systems of exploitation.
Jesus’ words call his followers, not countries, to account. The question is not whether a nation shines, but whether Jesus-following communities reflect the justice and mercy of God in public and unmistakable ways. When followers of Jesus engage their world by organizing for things such as fair wages, welcoming migrants, and resisting racism, all while standing alongside those harmed by unjust systems, they became that city on a hill. Their light points beyond themselves, not to national glory, but to the character of the Jesus they follow and the world his teachings have led them to not only imagine, but also to work to shape.
This makes even more sense when we hold it in the context of the image of a lamp on a lampstand. We’ll pick up with the lampstand metaphor in Part 3.
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